Cowgirls roll past Weber State

Richard Anderson photo
Wyoming's Aubrey Vandiver drives past Weber State's Ali Thorderson Friday night in the Arena-Auditorium.

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

The ball just fell into Aubrey Vandiver’s hands, so she says. The ball went in the basket for the Cowgirls and not for the Wildcats, which was obvious to the naked eye.

It was all about focus for Wyoming on Friday night, as the Cowgirls ran past Weber State 78-40 in the Arena-Auditorium.

Vandiver, looking as if last year’s redshirt year was well, well behind her, scored 16 points and grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds, as the Cowgirls shot 51 percent from the field, including a sizzling 9 of 16 behind the 3-point arc.

Defensively, Wyoming had 12 blocked shots and 10 steals, holding Weber State to a cool 27 percent from the field.

Yeah, that’s paying attention to the task at hand, all right.

“We’ve been really focused and have been training really hard for this,” said Wyoming junior post Jade Kennedy, who had a pretty decent game herself, with 12 points, five rebounds, five assists, four blocked shots and three steals.

The Cowgirls (9-1) spotted Weber State the first two points of the game, then scored 16 unanswered and led comfortably the rest of the way.

“Tonight we talked about coming out with a focus, an energy, because we knew that Weber State would have that energy to play hard,” Wyoming coach Joe Legerski said. “We got off to a great start offensively and then Weber State upped the intensity and we matched it.”

Kristen Scheffler and Kennedy both scored 12 points for Wyoming, with Hillary Carlson adding 11 points. Six Cowgirls scored at least nine points, as they shot 51 percent from the field, hitting 9 of 16 3-pointers.

Counting last Saturday’s 102-54 win over Dakota State, Wyoming also has 50 assists on 67 field goals made.

“We got into our rhythm and motion and were comfortable shooting, and we’re you’re relaxed shooting, the shots go in more often than not,” Vandiver said.

And if the ball didn’t go into the basket, Vandiver was there, with 12 defensive boards and five offensive rebounds.

“The ball was coming to me,” she said with a smile. “I know on a couple of them my teammates were boxing out so good, that it was just easy to go up and grab the ball.”

Then again, Vandiver’s aggressive play was heated a bit by Weber State grabbing one away from the Laramie junior.

You might say that payback was in store the rest of the way.

“Weber State is pretty aggressive and I know one time they ripped the ball away from me and I sort of used that as motivation,” Vandiver said. “But I know my teammates helped me out a lot, they boxed out. When they do that, it is easy to just let the ball come to you.”

Caitlin Anderson led Weber State (6-6) with 10 points. The Wildcats struggled offensively, shooting just 27 percent from the field, hitting 1 of 13 3-point attempts. Wyoming shut down the Wildcats with two major scoring droughts -- seven minutes in the first half and five minutes in the second half, outscoring Weber State 33-0 in those two runs.

“If we can get our defense going and hold them down -- I think we got a couple of decent steals that led to layups -- it allows us to get into our offense and gets us going more, I guess,” Vandiver said.

The Cowgirls return to action Sunday as part of a men’s-women’s doubleheader, as they host Oregon at 2 p.m. The Cowboys follow by hosting South Dakota at 5:30 p.m.